When you consider the fact that Xenoblade Chronicles almost never left Japan, it’s kind of amazing to think it has become somewhat of a steady franchise for Nintendo with the latest game in the series selling quite well for its genre. Before Xenoblade, however, there was Xenosaga (and before even that, there was Xenogears, but let’s not get too into the weeds) a narrative-driven RPG series also developed by Monolith Soft. The Xenoblade titles feature a lot in common with their spiritual predecessor and even have tons of little references and nods for fans who are familiar with both. So in the wake of Xenoblade‘s new success, you’d expect Xenosaga was a lock to come back in some form. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Bandai Namco’s Katsuhiro Harada answered a question via his official Twitter about remasters of the games, and he said at one point in time it was considered but after doing market research the company decided that the profitability margin just wasn’t there. He doesn’t outright kill the possibility of remasters in the future, but does say it’ll be a hard project to revive.

Xenosaga is a somewhat infamous series, originally conceived as a six episode epic, it was eventually reworked to a trilogy. It had mixed reception at the time, but still has a sizable fanbase, and the themes it had is carried on in the Xenoblade series. Xenoblade Chronicles will get a definitive re-release sometimes in 2020, so if the series continues being successful maybe Xenosaga will get its revival yet.

This actually progressed to the remaster's plan, but failed in a profitable market analysis.
Sorry guys, This plan will be difficult to resurface… https://t.co/0CRJJDPl5Z

— Katsuhiro Harada (@Harada_TEKKEN) December 26, 2019

“It’s quite common for a company to reject someone who only knows about games. We all have our preferences, but for us, I’d like to say that it’s the contrary. We’d most likely reject someone who doesn’t know his games. The reason being, we’d like to have someone who is as passionate about making games as we are.

“Of course it would be troublesome if gaming is the only thing one were to know about, but it would be even more troublesome if they didn’t know anything about it at all. We’re looking for someone who can enjoy making the game he made with his company.”

Essentially, Takahashi believes that knowledge alone isn’t enough if you don’t have the passion. Heck, it got legends like American McGee through the industry, so why not?

Source: Siliconera